Greased pole climbing in Philly: Why we do it and why we love it

Philadelphians are climbing greased poles again and people who aren’t from the greatest city on earth have questions. It’s The Inquirer’s job, as Philly’s paper of record, to try to answer them.

Long have Philadelphians been known for their penchant to come together and party around the most unlikely of things: potholes, dumpsters, steel furnace fliers, traffic circles, even a news conference at a landscaping business.

So when you give us a real reason to party — like the Phillies going to the World Series for the first time in 13 years — you better strap in and hold on.

Along with chanting, dancing, and drinking in the streets, on these special occasions, you’ll find a few Philadelphians overcome with a joy so powerful that it propels them straight up utility poles, street signs, and street lights (even ones that have been greased as a preventative measure).

But why? How? And can theybe stopped (the reporter asked, as “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” by Philly’s McFadden and Whitehead played somewhere in the distance)?

Philly’s history with greased-pole climbing dates back to the start of the South 9th Street Italian Market Festival in the 1960s. A long-standing tradition of the festival challenges groups to work together to climb a lard-covered pole to reach meats and cheeses at the top, said festival producer Michele Gambino.

To the best of her knowledge though, Gambino said none of the Italian Market Festival pole climbers scale poles to celebrate Philly sports victories.

“Those aren’t a team of greased pole climbers, they’re just fans who want to get to the top and wave a flag and take their shirts off,” she said. “It’s so befitting of how we celebrate, how we go to the extreme, and the kind of fan base we are. It’s like ‘The pole is there, why not go up?’”

This question is a bit tougher to answer. An Inquirer report from when the Flyers won the Stanley Cup in 1974 said people were partying in the streets and “reports of streaking were so numerous as to be repetitive,” but there was no mention of pole climbing.

However, at the victory parade the following day, the Daily News reported “people by the hundreds were atop billboards and light standards,” and a blog post by late Daily News reporter Bill Fleischman about that parade contains a photo of people atop a pole on Chestnut Street.

So we’ve at least been doing it since 1974.

Meredith Kneavel, associate dean in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at La Salle University and a professor of urban public health and nutrition who studies the intersection of sports, stress, socialization, and friendship, said some of it’s predicted behavior and some of it is just plain joy.

“I think now it’s that there’s an expectation that that’s the behavior. Now we know to expect it, we prepare for it, and the fans think they should do it,” she said. “And some of it is the sheer excitement and elation at the shared win. They really do feel like they were part of the win.”

Being a part of a large crowd can also play a role and diffuse responsibility.

“If it was one person, it’s odd behavior, but because everyone is egging them on, they’re in it together and that makes it an OK behavior,” Kneavel said.

Veteran celebratory sports victory pole climber Sean Hagan, 29, of South Philly, who climbed a pole on Broad Street Sunday, said he went alone to the street celebration after his friend went home from the bar following the game.

“If I was with people, I probably wouldn’t have done something like that,” he said. “But I do have a record of doing it before. It’s something I’ve always done and I don’t plan on stopping.”

Kneavel said people’s assessment of their own risk often goes down in a crowd.

“They’re no longer an individual person, they are part of a broad group,” she said. “And alcohol lowers our ability to make good decisions, for sure.”

Hagan wasn’t worried about getting arrested (which he did), but said that if he’d been sober and thought of the danger he was putting himself in, “I would have never done it.”

“After watching the videos I was like ‘Damn! I was swinging up there!’ One little slip and I’m, you know,” he said. “You could seriously get hurt. Don’t be stupid. If you don’t got it you don’t got it, don’t force it.

“I have the confidence and experience to do it,” he said.

City police didn’t start greasing poles until the Phillies 2009 World Series run, “to discourage and mitigate illegal and dangerous behavior, as well as for the safety of revelers,” said police spokesperson Officer Tanya Little.

Police started with Crisco, but during the Eagles 2018 Super Bowl, when fans were still able to scale poles , they switched to hydraulic fluid. But instead of a deterrent, some fans took it as a challenge and scaled those poles, too.

The department still had nine five-gallon pails of hydraulic fluid leftover from the 2018 Super Bowl, which they used to grease the poles on Sunday, in advance of the Phillies NLCS win, Little said.

At this point, Kneaval said it’d be hard to extinguish Philly’s greased-pole climbing flame.

“The only way to extinguish a behavior is to ignore it and not reward it, but it’s a safety issue so you can’t ignore it if you’re law enforcement,” she said. “I don’t know the answer to that, but it’d be a good conversation to have.”

Hagan, who said pole climbing is “a tradition in a city of traditions,” had one suggestion.

“The city should pay people to climb poles, then they’d know they were safe and protected,” he said. “They’d probably spend less money doing that than greasing the poles. Give me a World Series ticket and I’ll climb the pole.”

“At this time, no decision has been made,” police said.